NY Times Writer Blasts ARMY For Comparing BTS To Madonna…Says They “Made Her Gag”

A New York Times feature about Madonna is receiving backlash for its commentary on BTS.

On June 5, the New York Times published “Madonna at Sixty”, a story that looks back at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards and Madonna’s achievements through the years. The piece was written by contributor Vanessa Grigoriadis, who has faced criticism since its release.

In the article, Grigoriadis makes a disparaging remark about BTS’s “legendary status” while recounting their backstage meeting with Madonna. She states that the comparison between “a K-Pop band of 20-somethings” and Madonna makes her “gag”.

Backstage, Madonna posed for a candid photo with BTS; later, people left comments like “LEGENDS MEET LEGENDS” under the photo on Twitter. Finding out that there were indeed people who believed that a K-pop band of 20-somethings was equal in legendary status to Madonna, not only the highest-charting female musician and highest-grossing female touring musician in history but also an artist who changed the pop-culture game forever, made me gag, to use a phrase from her heyday.

— Vanessa Grigoriadis (“Madonna at Sixty”)

Grigoriadis also downplayed BTS’s musical achievements by equating their success and popularity to their strong social media presence.

When the people in the audience lost their minds that night, they lost them almost exclusively for the K-pop band BTS, whose smooth hip-hop moves have birthed a million memes. For Madonna, they rose to their feet and took their phones out to commemorate “the time they saw Madonna” but seemed to scream loudest for the gyrating butterfly part, which was a little skanky, and that pleased them.

— Vanessa Grigoriadis (“Madonna at Sixty”)

Other BBMAs performers, such as BTS’s “Boy With Luv” collaborator, Halsey, TaylorSwift, and the Jonas Brothers also received unflattering comparisons to the Queen of Pop.

But [Madonna] wasn’t incorporating fireworks, a marching band and flying backup dancers, as Taylor Swift did; she didn’t hand out special bracelets to every person in the audience, then activate them to beam a thousand points of light, as the Jonas Brothers did; she wasn’t in a leotard and rolling around on the floor simulating a lesbian make-out session, as Halsey did, though the reason Halsey did that has a lot to do with Madonna doing it first.

— Vanessa Grigoriadis (“Madonna at Sixty”)

On social media, Grigoriadis has received negative feedback, not just from fans, but from Madonna herself.

Finding out that people believed that a K-pop band of 20-somethings was equal in legendary status to Madonna, the highest-charting female musician and highest-grossing female touring musician in history, made me gag, to use a phrase from her heyday. https://t.co/VDsyCFulpr

Madonna posted a photo from the feature on her Instagram, along with her thoughts. She expressed her great disappointment with “Madonna at Sixty” and society’s “endless need to diminish, disparage, or degrade”.

To say that I was disappointed in the article would be an understatement- It seems. You cant fix society
And its endless need to diminish,
Disparage or degrade that which they know is good.

– Madonna

Madonna explained that she spent months with the article’s writer, but instead of writing something meaningful about the world she’d been invited into, Grigoriadis focused on “trivial and superficial matters”. Madonna stated that “Madonna at Sixty” makes her feel “raped”.

The journalist who wrote this article spent days and hours and months with me and was invited into a world which many people dont get to see, but chose to focus on trivial and superficial matters such as the ethnicity of my stand in or the fabric of my curtains and never ending comments about my age which would never have been mentioned had I been a MAN! Women have a really hard time being the champions of other women even if. they are posing as intellectual feminists.
Im sorry i spent 5 minutes with her. It makes me feel raped.